Do Low Income Youth of Color See "The Bigger Picture" When Discussing Type 2 Diabetes: A Qualitative Evaluation of a Public Health Literacy Campaign.

As Type 2 diabetes spikes among minority and low-income youth, there is an urgent need to tackle the drivers of this preventable disease. The Bigger Picture (TBP) is a counter-marketing campaign using youth-created, spoken-word public service announcements (PSAs) to reframe the epidemic as a socio-environmental phenomenon requiring communal action, civic engagement and norm change. METHODS:We examined whether and how TBP PSAs advance health literacy among low-income, minority youth. We showed nine PSAs, asking individuals open-ended questions via questionnaire, then facilitating a focus group to reflect upon the PSAs. RESULTS:Questionnaire responses revealed a balance between individual vs. public health literacy. Some focused on individual responsibility and behaviors, while others described socio-environmental forces underlying risk. The focus group generated a preponderance of public health literacy responses, emphasizing future action. Striking sociopolitical themes emerged, reflecting tensions minority and low-income youth experience, such as entrapment vs. liberation. CONCLUSION:Our findings speak to the structural barriers and complexities underlying diabetes risk, and the ability of spoken word medium to make these challenges visible and motivate action. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS:Delivering TBP content to promote interactive reflection has potential to change behavioral norms and build capacity to confront the social, economic and structural factors that influence behaviors

Weakly Enforced Boundary Conditions for the NURBS-Based Finite Cell Method

In this paper, we present a variationally consistent formulation for the weak enforcement of essential boundary conditions as an extension to the finite cell method, a fictitious domain method of higher order. The absence of boundary fitted elements in fictitious domain or immersed boundary methods significantly restricts a strong enforcement of essential boundary conditions to models where the boundary of the solution domain coincides with the embedding analysis domain. Penalty methods and Lagrange multiplier methods are adequate means to overcome this limitation but often suffer from various drawbacks with severe consequences for a stable and accurate solution of the governing system of equations. In this contribution, we follow the idea of NITSCHE [29] who developed a stable scheme for the solution of the Laplace problem taking weak boundary conditions into account. An extension to problems from linear elasticity shows an appropriate behavior with regard to numerical stability, accuracy and an adequate convergence behavior. NURBS are chosen as a high-order approximation basis to benefit from their smoothness and flexibility in the process of uniform model refinement

The Function of Love in Solzhenitsyn\u27s The First Circle

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, like Boris Pasternak before him, insists upon the primacy of life over any socio-political system. To lead truly meaningful lives, his characters must comprehend that they are responsible for their own actions; that they are engaged in an existential struggle which pits individual freedom against the will of authority. In The First Circle, this struggle is clearly reflected in the theme of love which, when analyzed in terms of the suppression or triumph of its four basic elements (sex, eros, philia, and agape), offers a convincing allegory of man\u27s existential self-definition by free choice

Study of intuitive eating ratings and self-efficacy differences in women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

Background: Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine disorder, which if left untreated can lead to infertility and diabetes. Objective: To determine whether women with PCOS who practice intuitive eating skills are more confident in sustaining healthy lifestyle changes. Methods: A web-based survey was completed by 120 women with PCOS. Bivariate associations between the self-efficacy and intuitive eating scales was investigated using scatterplots, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and a simple linear regression model. Ratings on the intuitive eating scale were dichotomized as high or low and self-efficacy ratings were compared. Results: Of the 120 responses, 89% of women (n=107) had previously dieted. A positive relationship existed between intuitive eating ratings and self-efficacy (p\u3c0.001). Conclusion: Women who engaged in fewer dieting behaviors and thinking were more likely to anticipate implementing and sustaining health behavior and lifestyle changes. Dietary approaches to PCOS which include intuitive eating skills will be more effective and lasting